Tribute to the Honorable John R. Lewis
TRIBUTE TO THE HONORABLE JOHN R. LEWIS
Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, 5 years ago Salisbury University, which is located in the town of Salisbury on Maryland's Eastern Shore, established PACE, the Institute for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement. PACE has a dual mission: to serve the communities of the Eastern Shore, using campus resources, faculty-student research teams and off-campus opportunities like internships and a voter registration drive to promote responsible citizenship and good government; and to promote the active engagement of students in civic affairs. For Salisbury Professors Harry Basehart, of the political science department, and Francis Kane, of the philosophy department, who together founded PACE and serve as its co-directors, this is a personal mission as well.
Among PACE's many programs is an annual lecture series that brings to the campus distinguished guests to speak on issues of public life, especially issues that most concern Salisbury's students. The speaker this year, on March 29, was Congressman John R. Lewis, who represents Georgia's 5th Congressional District and is serving his ninth term.
It is fair to say that in all his life from his childhood in rural Troy, AL, through his years as a student leader in the civil rights movement, to his dedicated service in the Congress Congressman Lewis has never known a day of lassitude, apathy or indifference. He spoke to Salisbury's students from the perspective of his own student years, and I have rarely seen an audience listen with such focused intensity.
As it happens, I was born and raised in Salisbury. I was deeply honored to have the opportunity to introduce Congressman Lewis to the Salisbury community, and I ask unanimous consent to print my introductory remarks in the Congressional Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
INTRODUCTION FOR CONGRESSMAN JOHN R. LEWIS, PACE LECTURE, SALISBURY UNIVERSITY
(By Senator Paul S. Sarbanes)
It is pleasure to return to the campus of Salisbury University. As many of you know, coming to Salisbury is as always coming home. My parents had come to this country as immigrants from Greece and they settled in Salisbury. I grew up here and went to Wicomico County's public schools. Lifelong convictions and aspirations first took shape in Salisbury.
Today it is a special pleasure to be here, because I have the signal honor and privilege of introducing my congressional friend and colleague, John R. Lewis, as the third speaker in the annual lecture series sponsored by PACE, this University's Institute for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement.
The purpose of the lecture series is to bring distinguished public figures to the campus to speak on issues of public life. That certainly describes Congressman Lewis, who is serving his ninth term in the House of Representatives as the representative of Georgia's 5th congressional district, which includes the city of Atlanta. Congressman Lewis sits on the Ways and Means and Budget Committees, both with critically important jurisdictions. He is universally respected as a legislator. Most recently he guided to enactment legislation to establish a new National Museum of African American History and Culture. The Museum will take its rightful place among our nation's great Smithsonian Institutions on the Mall.
But as many of you surely know-as I hope all of you know-Congressman Lewis's distinguished record in the House of Representatives is but one part of what makes him so special as this year's PACE lecturer.
When PACE was established 5 years ago, its founders Professors Harry Baseheart and Fran Kane said their objective was "to save the next generation from the enervating winds of political apathy and cynicism and to play a part in a revival of civil engagement among our students." Through its many programs, including this lectureship, that is precisely what PACE does.
I think it is fair to say that there has not been a single day in John Lewis's remarkable life which has been marked by cynicism, apathy or disengagement. For the full story, I commend to you his absolutely gripping memoir, Walking with the Wind. But I want to say a few words about it.
In his memoir, Congressman Lewis tells us that his engagement began as he watched the bus boycott in Montgomery, AL, 50 miles from his home in rural Troy. Martin Luther King put words into action, he says, "in a way that set the course of my life from that point on. . . . With all that I have experienced in the past half century, I can still say without question that the Montgomery bus boycott changed my life more than any other event before or since."
John Lewis was then 15 years old. He was setting out on a long and dangerous road with twists and turns, on a journey demanding inexhaustible supplies of moral and also physical courage.
Today we call that road the Civil Rights Movement. It is central to understanding the history of our country in the past 50 years.
Seen from another perspective, the Movement is the story of John Lewis's life, as he has lived it day by day.
In 1957, John Lewis managed to get to college in Nashville on a full scholarship. There he became a leader in the student sit-in movement, which challenged the laws that allowed African Americans to spend their money shopping in Nashville's stores but forbade them to sit at the lunch counters. David Halberstam has observed that the students had much in the way of ideals and convictions, but they had no protection-"no police force, no judges, no cops, no money."
John Lewis went to jail for sitting down-the first of some 40 times he was to go to jail. Three months later, the lunch counters "served food to black customers for the first time in the city's history."
John Lewis went on the Freedom Rides, which tested the Supreme Court ruling that all vestiges of segregation in interstate travel had to end. As he observes in his memoir, "Issuing the decision was one thing, of course. Carrying it out, as I would soon learn firsthand, was another."
He rode the first bus, which traveled from Washington, DC, to Mississippi. He can recount for you better than I how many times he was beaten and jailed in the course of that ride. The violence that the Freedom Riders encountered was for most Americans unimaginable.
In the summer of 1961, when the ride ended, John Lewis was 21 years old.
There is not enough time today to do justice to that ride, or John Lewis's years as chairman of SNCC, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, or his speech on the Mall in Washington in 1963. But in this election year I want to comment on the events that took place in Selma, AL, on March 7, 1965. They have gone down in our history as "Bloody Sunday."
On that day several hundred Americans set out to march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama's capital. Their purpose was to press for the right to vote, a right denied to African Americans. The unarmed marchers were brutally attacked by a "human wave" of "troopers and possemen." John Lewis was among many beaten unconscious.
Bloody Sunday shocked the Nation. Five months later the historic Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law-a direct consequence of the horrific attack at Selma. In the words of Taylor Branch, "The powerful new law broke decades of impediment and heartache."
On Bloody Sunday, every marcher's life was on the line-for the right to vote.
I ask you to reflect on the events at Selma and their meaning for our Nation, and on November 2-Election Day 2004-to exercise your priceless citizen's right vote.
From the beginning our Nation has lived by certain abiding principles. These were set out more than 60 years ago by the distinguished Swedish sociologist Gunnar Myrdal, in his landmark study of race and America democracy, An American Dilemma. He called this "The American Creed." Here are his words: "It is the current in the structure of this great and disparate nation . . . encompassing our 'ideals of the essential dignity of the individual human being, of the fundamental equality of all men (and women), and of certain inalienable rights to freedom, justice, and a fair opportunity.' These ideals are "written into the Declaration of Independence, the Preamble of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and into the constitutions of the several states."
For much of its history our Nation failed to live up to the principles it espoused. It has been John Lewis's lifelong mission to end the terrible contradiction that once assured these rights to some of our people while cruely denying them to others. He has led and inspired generations of Americans to make our Nation a better place for all our people. He has an incredible story to tell. It is a privilege to have Congressman Lewis on the Salisbury campus today, and I am honored to introduce him.